From the Journals of Rowan, Druid of Eaglesford
....in my wolf form I ran after the "steam babe". (And Riva followed me, of course!) We ran ahead of the rest, heedless of the danger, so........well, things were going pretty much as they always do.
We heard it say something in a language neither Riva nor I understood (but that sounded like hissing steam), then it darted around a corner. I rounded the corner and found that it was there, facing me. It breathed scalding steam on me and burned my eyes terribly; it was difficult to see after that. I missed it, but Riva sliced it with his greatsword, wounding it heavily.
We could hear the rest calling out to us, trying to find us through the steam and the maze. I could tell it would be a while before they could get to us.....but the steam-wench's friends got to us right away to help their sister. (Sigh. I wonder if charging off alone like this is ever going to get me into real trouble?) But Riva was with me, and his greatsword was doing terrible damage to any of them within reach. I tried to help with a few spells....but they kept breathing scalding steam at me! After a short time I passed out from the heat.
When I came to, Thaile was standing over me, using her healing magic. My friends had destroyed most of the steam wenches. Only one had escaped. Tieran cornered another one as I awoke. She managed to fly past him and all of us after shouting something to Tieran. One of us needs to find a way to understand what they are saying, but as it stands now, we can’t.
We moved on once again, wandering through the maze of corridors. A blast of steam came from behind Mor’Elandi , catching him, but not scalding him. We tried to retaliate, but the steam babe fled back into the mists. (Tieran keeps trying to correct me as I write this. He says they are "Steam Mephits". Whatever. "Steam babes" is so much more appropriate, especially after we found out.....but that's a later part of this story.)
Thaile reminded us, as we walked on, to keep track of what we carry with us in case some more of it turns up missing.
We passed a cracked wall, with a large chunk of it removed. Tieran said that it was done magically. Beyond this area, was a large room with several strange, triangular pillars. After looking at it for a bit, Tieran said that the area had been disintegrated....that the pillars were the remnants of walls that were now gone. Riva said that the damage was very, very old.
As we were moving through the steam-filled area, Tieran noticed the strange little creature (four arms, one leg) that had stolen some things before. (I guess he could notice it because he had activated that magical dragon broach of his.) It passed through Riva, Tieran said. Tieran shot a crossbow at it and the bolt passed right through the creature. It ran away and we chased it (well, Tieran chased it and Kytum-up, Mor’Elandi, and Thaile were all tied to him so they had to come along, Riva and I followed as well). Even though it could pass thru us easily enough, it went around ruined sections of wall and piles of rubble. Very curious. Tieran tried to stop it by casting a web, but the creature walked through the magical web as if it were not even there.
We decided that our best option would be to locate the center of the maze and that would possibly help us figure out what we were supposed to do. As we began to move, stopping to get our bearings every few minutes, one of the steam wenches breathed steam on us, scalding Thaile. It turned to flee as soon as it had finished.
We eventually found the center of the maze. It turned out to be the room with the conical mound of ropey, melted rock. Figures - we were there several times before. Of course, we had no idea what we were supposed to do. For a test of purpose, we've got no clue what our purpose actually is.
Once we knew that we were at the center of the maze, Riva climbed up to the top of the cone. The ceiling looks as though it was melted, and the cone was caused by the ceiling dripping down onto the floor and piling up there. Melted rock hangs from the ceiling in long icicle shapes. Riva called them stalactites, and being a dwarf, he does know these things. Tieran said that this was magically done, instantaneous and long ago. Riva agreed about the age of the damage.
On the cone, I tried to soften the stone, but the spell didn’t work, though I suspect that it might have if my casting had been better, or perhaps if my connection to the energies of nature were stronger. I feel my connection to the natural world is less strong underground, surrounded by so much worked stone. After my attempt to help ended, Riva began to dig into the top of the cone. While Riva was digging, Tieran tried to detect magic on the area and found nothing. Thaile tried it as well and found something very faint, about a foot down, roughly dead center of the maze.
Riva moved to the correct place to dig and began to work on getting through the stone again. Another of the steam wenches came and breathed on us, not scalding anyone, but certainly reminding us not to let our guard down. We set up to watch each entrance and managed to be unmolested for the rest of the time it took Riva to dig through.
When he was finally through, there was a puff of white powder and a strangely shaped cavity in the rock. We later determined that the powder was the remains of the creature that had died in the hole we had uncovered. The cavity was the shape of the four armed thing that kept taking our stuff. There was nothing inside but more of the powdery residue of the hole’s former occupant, however, one of the pieces of rock that Riva had pried up had a magical aura and Thaile decided to try to open it (after briefly considering asking Riva to break it, but thinking better of that in the end). It popped open, revealing a gold ring with figures of giants on it. Hill giants to be precise. The magical aura was moderate, but neither Thaile nor Tieran could figure out what it did. Mor’Elandi also took a look at it. So, Thaile put it on and began trying to activate it. After a bit, she managed to do so and grew quite large.
While Tieran and Mor’Elandi had examined it, they determined that it was of early empire manufacture and so, was quite old. Mor’Elandi scooped up the remaining powder from the hole, wondering if perhaps the thing we had seen was a ghost. After some discussion, we determined that it was not undead or a ghost, but maybe from another plane....in the end, though, we still, as always, had more questions than answers.
We decided that our best option at that point was to try to find a place to hole up for the night and get some rest. We moved to a small room with only one exit. Then, using pieces of rubble, we constructed a wall across the doorway with a small tunnel leading inward so that those of us sleeping would be relatively safe. Those on watch would be outside the room.
While we were clearing rubble, we found some scratchings on a piece of rubble. It was a symbol, etched into the stone of six circles, stacked inside a downward pointing triangle. It looked somehow familiar to us, but none of us could place it. Riva said that it too was very, very old.
As we settled in, we decided that we need to figure out a plan to find our stuff and to determine the purpose of this seemingly purposeless test of purpose. (Oh, I bet I couldn’t say that three times fast!) We decided that the four armed creature can run through webs and us but cannot go through stone for whatever reason. The one we found (powdered) was entombed in the rock, so we could be pretty sure that they could not get out of rock.
The first two watches passed without event. Thaile and Riva were on first and heard the steam wenches, but they did not approach. Mor’Elandi and Kyt on second heard the same, obviously they know where we are. On third was me and Tieran. We watched as the four-armed, one legged thing appeared again, tore the dragon brooch off of Tieran’s cloak, and took off running.
Hey! We need that broach to see you, you little.......
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